Ice cream makers: Making Money Fast

We don't have enough public market acquirers to sustain the start-up ecosystem.
That was the real back story that explains why Google failed to close a deal to buy
Groupon. Groupon wanted to
sell to Google for $6 billion. Of course they did, that is a huge amount of money – real cold hard cash – for a 2 year old
venture. Do you really think they turned that down for the vague possibility of
making more from an IPO in the distant future? Yes we all hear the stories of
visionary entrepreneurs who are such bold risk-takers and some of that is true but
most entrepreneurs don’t love risk, they love eliminating risk on the way to
building a venture. The real story is that Groupon only backed off due to worries that the deal
would fall into AntiTrust
hurdles.

If we only have a handful of acquiring companies (basically today it is Google,
Amazon and Microsoft, now that eBay and Yahoo are wounded), the AntiTrust hurdle becomes more real. Even
if there is no AntiTrust
issue, Google, Amazon and Microsoft simply cannot buy all those venture-backed
companies.

So we need Groupon to go public and use their public
currency to buy other ventures working on local advertising/ecommerce. That will be
good news for lots of ventures. And a Groupon IPO success
will spur on other ventures that are getting ready for IPO.

I don’t know if Groupon really have the solid
financials to go public. We won’t know until they issue their prospectus to the
SEC. Until then we only have rumor and speculation. But if I were a betting man, I
would bet on Groupon being able to go public before
Twitter. And, this will be more controversial, before Facebook. But that as they say is another story. I am not trying here
to compile an actual list of ventures that could IPO in 2011. This is more about the
general environment for IPOs.

This has been what Steve Blank calls the “lost
decade” for tech IPOs. So why do I think that 2011 will be the year this
changes? There are 5 reasons:

Private
markets are under SEC scrutiny. This takes away the easy option of getting
liquidity without either selling or going public. If you have more than 500
shareholders you have to make your financials public, it is the law.

There is a
backlog of great companies that have the financial strength to IPO. The IPO market
has been pretty well closed for a couple of years (some notable exceptions prove the
rule). So the companies that have the potential to IPO have had more time to grow and
get their act together.

Investors
are hungry for growth outside emerging markets. GDP in America and Europe seems to
have a ceiling at 3% and the Chindia and BRIC stories of
emerging markets growing at 8-10% has created too much capital flowing to those
markets (generating fears of a bubble). So investors want companies in the developed
markets that can grow at really fast pace (at least 30%, ideally 60% plus) from a
base of at least $100m revenue for a long time to come. That has to come primarily
from tech/media ventures.

The
macroeconomic picture is improving. Yes, there are always worries and another
crash is always possible, but "markets always climb a wall of worry" and the general
trends seem positive. But cycles don't last forever, so the people making these
decisions (Boards and their Investment Bankers) will look at 2011 as a good window of
opportunity.

The bean
counters have figured out how to live with Sarbox. For a long time, Sarbanes Oxley ("Sarbox") regulatory overhead has been seen as a reason why you cannot
run a public company. Baloney, as they say in Brooklyn. It is a simple bit of
operational overhead, a rounding error for a great company.

IPO is still the golden ticket. Real entrepreneurs want to IPO. Getting acquired
is a great way to build capital, but it is not the dream of the really driven,
talented entrepreneurs. There are logical reasons for this. The valuation at IPO is
usually (not always, plenty of exceptions to this rule) higher than you can get from
an M&A exit. And more importantly for the
entrepreneur, it is actually often easier to manage public market investors than a
bunch of VC with different agendas. But logical reasons be damned, an IPO is simply
the big badge of honor for the entrepreneur and the investors who back him/her.

It is not clear what we will call the decade that starts in a few days time
– the “teens” maybe – but it will possibly be one where we
get a sustainable IPO market for tech ventures. By “sustainable” I mean
that it cannot be a return to the Dot Com bubble years. Only great companies with
really solid financials will get through the IPO gate. And the valuations will have
to remain grounded in reality (short sellers will ensure that is the case).

Here’s hoping. Happy New Year folks.

Jesus’s birthday is coming up. And you know what he wants for his birthday? Nothing more than for you lose weight and become more attractive. As C.S. Lovett helpfully explains in his 1979 book, Help Lord … The Devil Wants Me Fat!, there’s a simple way to not be so fat: stop eating. Just completely stop. See, it’s not hunger that causes you to eat delicious holiday treats, it’s Satan.

Maybe that seems extreme to you. What about clean, natural, whole foods in their purest forms? you might ask. I eat a raw, macrobiotic, vegan diet, and I feel fantastic, you say. Yap, yap, yap. All I hear is Satan telling filthy lies.

Not convinced? People who own the book and have followed the instructed fast simply rave about it!

This book has to be one of the greatest books written concerning weight loss and how to tear down strongholds that the enemy has built in one's mind by causing one to overeat. By putting thoughts in one's mind to eat when one is not really hungry, the devil deceives unsuspecting Christians by the bondage caused by overeating and not being able to serve the Lord, as one would if he was in better shape. (I didn't word that right but you will understand what I mean if you will buy the book.) … [A]fter reading the book I fasted for 11 complete days and there was nothing to it.

—Ndubusi, on Amazon

Some readers feel so passionately about how this book has changed their lives that they even blog about it on SparkPeople.

Most do not think of overeating as a sin but it's the devil's way of getting control of otherwise good Christians who would never think of sinning in other ways, to destroy themselves, bite by bite. It really doesn't matter whether we are bound by drugs, sex or money, the chains still chain us. In reality it wouldn't matter if we were bound by rope, iron or real chains, if we're bound, we're bound…When you look at it as a battle with Satan, it perks up your soul and helps you to determine not to let him win anymore.

Lovett and his wife, Linda, who did the book’s illustrations, encourage you to win your battle with the devil by thinking of your brain (soul?) as a computer that you can program with visualization. Like this:

Like any war with dark forces, this one will require constant vigilance. Much like Santa Claus, Lucifer sees you and what you eat not just when you are awake, but even when you are sleeping.

So now our plan is in place. Let’s make Jesus happy and stick to our inevitable New Year’s resolutions. Just remember, if you break this diet, there's more at stake than skinny jeans and self esteem. There is your immortal soul.

Merry Christmas!

Previously: Looking Pretty for the Holidays.

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Making Money Fast

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